Introduction
License agreements and copyright laws prevent Harvard libraries from offering alumni complete access to online resources. There is, however, a large and growing body of resources available to everyone, thanks to library digitization projects, the open access movement, and other efforts.
HKS Library Research Guides
Our 40+ expertly curated Research Guides are freely available online. These guides offer subject-specific resources on topics like:
- COVID-19 resources for social scientists
- Campaigns & Elections
- Human Rights
- National & International Security
- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
If a resource listed in our guides doesn't specify "Harvard Login," it is likely freely available online.
Zotero
Zotero is a free and open-source citation management software that allows you to manage your research materials, create bibliographies, format citations, take notes, and collaborate with others.
You can download Zotero even after graduation, and refer to Harvard Library's online guide for help.
All the content you've added to Zotero before graduation will stay in your account. Any new content you add after your HKS email becomes inactive will be subject to Zotero's 300MB free limit. You can purchase more storage online.
Make sure to change your email!
Your student HKS email account and address will remain active for one year after your status is officially changed to Graduate in Harvard's systems. Before this happens, add a personal email address to your Zotero account so you don't get locked out of your content.
- Login to Zotero online.
- Click on your username in the upper right corner, then select "Settings" from the drop-down.
- Click on the "Account" tab.
- Under "Add email address," add your personal email address.
- Once your HKS email becomes inactive, delete that address from this page. Your personal email will become the primary one associated with your Zotero account.
Articles & Books
Many online platforms provide free access to articles, citations, and even full-text books.
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Developing Nations InitiativeList of free or low cost scholarly literature access programs for residents of developing countries. Eligibility criteria vary by program.
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Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH)DASH is Harvard's central open-access repository. It hosts scholarly work by HKS affiliates including faculty, Centers, and students, and other Harvard community members.
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Digital Commons NetworkAccess to 600,000 publications from almost 300 institutions. Search by keyword or topic.
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Digital Public Library of AmericaOnline books, maps, photos, and much more from libraries, archives, and museums, freely available to all.
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Directory of Open Access BooksVoted one of the best free reference sites by an ALA reference librarian group, this site enables the user to find free, open access books online.
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Directory of Open Access JournalsDirectory of free, full text, scientific and scholarly journals. Currently contains over 7,500 titles.
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EconBizProvides citations and some full-text access to articles on business, management, and economics topics in (mainly) scholarly journals; since EconBiz is edited in Germany, it offers excellent coverage of European publications.
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ERICA wide variety of journal and non-journal literature in the field of education. Not all material is available in full text.
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Google ScholarSearch scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including legal cases. Not all content in this search is freely available.
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HathiTrustA shared digital repository created by major research libraries. Features millions of digitized texts, some freely available in full-text, some limited to search-only.
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Internet ArchiveDigitized books, journals, audio, video, and more, all free. In addition to contemporary texts, includes a wealth of digitized historical material.
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Journalist's ResourceA project of the Shorenstein Center, this site surfaces scholarly materials that may be relevant to media practitioners, bloggers, educators, students and general readers. Some of their articles outline how journalists can access academic research for free.
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National Academies PressCollection of over 5,000 academic titles available to read online at no cost.
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NBER: National Bureau of Economic ResearchFree access to working papers 18 months and older.
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Open Access Theses and DissertationsResource for locating open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world.
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OpenDOAROpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories. Repositories can be located by subject and location. The site also links to a customized Google search of the open access repositories included in this directory.
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PolicyArchiveAn open access repository of public policy research by think tanks, NGOs, CRS, and university centers.
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Project GutenbergOver 49,000 free books available in a variety of downloadable formats.
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PubMed Central (PMC)Repository of articles produced with the support of NIH research grants and made publically available within 12 months of publication. Not all material is available in full text.
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Rand CorporationPublications dating from 1946. Topics include criminal justice, national security, terrorism, international affairs, healthcare and energy.
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RePEc: Research Papers in EconomicsProvides links to working papers and journal articles in economics. Try the IDEAS service.
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SSRN: Social Science Research NetworkContains working papers in social science, law and business/economics fields. Registration is required.
Policy Research
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Policy CommonsThe world's largest database for public policy, with millions of reports, working papers, policy briefs, data sources, and media drawn from a directory of more than 40,000 IGOs, NGOs, think tanks, and research centers on disciplines including agriculture, energy, pharmaceuticals, diversity, crime, and librarianship. Users can upload, share, and discuss discoveries.
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Find PolicyA side project of Transparify, search think tank sites grouped by topic and location.
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Open Research Reports from JSTORMore than 39,000 research reports from over 140 policy institutes around the world are freely accessible to everyone on JSTOR. The open research reports are discoverable alongside journals, books, and primary sources, and are clearly labeled as their own content type.
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Open Think Tank DirectoryA global collection of 2700 think tanks and related organisations.
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Think Tank Review
Repository of think tank publications on EU affairs from the Library of the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU.
Open Source Software
Open source software is distributed with its source code, making it freely available for use. There are open-source alternatives to many of the commercial software tools Harvard licenses.
Adobe Creative Cloud Alternatives
PDF Editing (Adobe Acrobat DC)
Visual Effects & Motion Graphics (Adobe After Effects)
Digital Audio (Adobe Audition)
Vector Graphics (Adobe Illustrator)
Desktop Publishing (Adobe InDesign)
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Microsoft PublisherNot open source, but included in Office 365 subscriptions.
Transcoding (Adobe Media Encoder)
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FFmpegRequires knowledge of command line interface.
Raster Graphics (Adobe Photoshop)
Video Editing (Adobe Premiere Pro)
ArcGIS Alternative
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QGISAll the same functionality as ArcGIS in an open-source tool.
NVivo Alternatives
NVivo offers a free 14-day trial and 24-month subscriptions, with discounts available for students. Other free and less expensive options include:
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DedooseCommercial alternative to NVivo. Offers 30-day trial then payments only per active month. Discounts available.
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qdapR package for qualitative data analysis.
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RQDAR package for qualitative data analysis.
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ELANOriginally developed for linguistics rather than qualitative social science research.
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TaguetteText tagging.
Tableau Alternatives
Tableau Desktop offers a free one-year license for students. Other alternatives include:
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DatawrapperDecent amount of features but visualizations are watermarked.
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Google Data StudioPrimarily for building dashboards.